


Simple Gifts

by tsiviaravina



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Characters Took Over, F/M, Feels, Fluff, Fluff and Smut, Inaccuracies abound, Some angst, What Was I Thinking?, idek, probably nsfw
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-18
Updated: 2015-09-18
Packaged: 2018-04-21 09:05:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4823195
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tsiviaravina/pseuds/tsiviaravina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lola becomes a "vehicle of communication" on a number of levels for Skye and Coulson. Set early on in S2. Probably considered slight AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Simple Gifts

**Author's Note:**

> My first fanfiction in many, many moons. It was supposed to be straightforward smut, but then the characters hijacked it and it ended up becoming what I have posted here. I hope some of you out there will enjoy it. I edited like mad, but have no beta reader, so any and all mistakes, inaccuracies, etc. are mine. The characters are not.

Simple Gifts

 

He should stop this. He knows better than this and what he’s doing is something only teenaged boys or dirty old men did. He can imagine her amusement now, flipping her hair out of her face, eyes flashing with humor, knowing exactly what he was thinking as she grinned up and over her shoulder at him.

He should not be watching her while she lovingly, carefully, washed Lola.

It’s his own fault—he had no one else to blame.

***

It started when they were still a team, still a small family, working together on the Bus. He had yet another nightmare and warm milk just wasn’t going to do it for him this time. He pulled on jeans and a black T-shirt and softly made his way to the garage and then to the cargo hold of the Bus.

It was methodical, like everything he did. Putting up Lola’s top, rolling up the windows. Pulling out the bright red detailing cart and uncoiling the hose. Setting up the matching red buckets with their coordinating black Grit Guards.

He frowned to himself as he squatted and peered into one of the lower cabinets where he stored Lola’s supplies. Wash, yes. He pulled a bottle from the cabinet. Wax? Nah, too much when he just wanted to relax…

“Hey, A.C.”

Her voice, husky from sleep, startled him enough to make him give his head a bump on the countertop.

“Dammit, I’m sorry,” he heard her say as he looked over his shoulder to see her walking towards him in a large white V-necked T-shirt (probably stolen from Ward’s laundry) and cutoffs. She crouched down next to him, saying, “Coulson, stop squirming and let me see if you’re bleeding or anything.” Said squirming was being caused by soft, warm hands on the sides of his head.

“Skye, I’m fine,” he huffed. She chuckled.

“That’s what you always say and then Simmons has to patch you up somewhere—nope, you were lucky this time. No blood, no cut. Not even a bump. What are you doing down here at two in the morning, anyway?”

“Couldn’t sleep,” he said shortly. “I should be asking you the same question.”

“Same answer,” she snarked back. “Couldn’t sleep.” He noticed the faintest beginnings of dark circles under her eyes and wondered what terrors her dreams held. She looked at Lola, at the buckets, and the cabinet full of car cleaning concoctions. “Gonna give Lola a bath?” she asked.

“Why?” he asked in return, extending a hand to her as he stood up. “Wanna help?”

She accepted the hand, rose, and looked around at the dim cargo hold with the lights trained solely on Coulson’s car. It was calm and blessedly quiet. She smiled back at Coulson. “Sure thing, A.C. But you’ll have to teach me how to take care of Lola—I have a feeling this is not like washing any old car.”

He watched her smile grow gentler as she turned her eyes to the car, and ran her fingertips over Lola’s hood. He watched, mesmerized by the sight of her T-shirt slipping off one shoulder. He inhaled and mentally gave himself a shake, wishing he could shake off some completely unprofessional desires.

“Hey,” he called to her. She turned towards him and she instinctively caught the soft, white thing he tossed to her. She examined it and chuckled again.

“Are we making Muppets or washing Lola, Coulson?”

“I’ll have you know that is a very expensive cotton chenille wash mitt.” He leaned back against the counter and folded him arms across his chest. She looked at him from under her lashes, with one raised eyebrow. “Regular towels will scratch the finish. Sea sponges are better, but if you’re not careful, your fingernails can scratch the finish. A wash mitt covers your whole hand and conforms to it so you can wash around the windows, mirrors, and bumpers. No scratches or swirls on Lola’s paint job.”

She looked down at the mitt and nodded. “There’s always a method to the madness. Should’ve known that by now.” She slid the mitt over her right hand. “So, I won’t scratch Lola. What’s next?”

He smiled the same small smile he had on his face when he and Ward had snatched her from her van. He also had the hose in his hand.

“Whoa, there, cowboy. Spray me with cold water and it will never be safe for you to sleep again.”

He stepped closer to her, watching her mouth twitch with repressed laughter. He teasingly flicked a few drops at her before nudging her out of the way with his hip as he let the running water flow over Lola’s hood and down the car’s sides.

He started to speak again. “You always want to wash a car from top to bottom. You want to make sure that none of the vehicle is re-contaminated by dirt or debris from different areas.” He crouched down and pointed to a spot behind the right front tire. “You especially don’t want to transfer brake dust to the rest of the car.” She crouched down beside him, nodding. He could tell from the expression on her face that she was actually paying close attention, as absorbed in learning this pedantic procedure as she was when in the middle of a complicated hack or studying for the next exam S.H.I.E.L.D. was throwing at her.

So he watched as she followed all his instructions, washing the car almost tenderly, careful to run her mitt over the Grit Guards in the bottom of her bucket. She was unusually quiet, a peaceful expression on her face, and the way she moved reminded him of Melinda doing Tai Chi. He didn’t feel the need to speak, either, unless she asked him a direct question, all related solely to caring for Lola.

He showed her how free-flowing water sheeted easily off the car’s perfect finish, and let her finish rinsing while he picked up an absurdly expensive chamois from England and began drying from top to bottom. When Skye was done rinsing, he watched out of the corner of his eye as she dumped the contents of the two wash buckets, rinsed them clean, then wrapped the hose back up into a neat coil. She found a second clean chamois, and again, followed his softly spoken instructions.

When the car was dry and buffed to a bright shine, Skye stepped back, looked at Lola, and smiled, only to break it with a large yawn.

He walked over to her and took the chamois from her. “I’ll finish up here,” he said softly, giving her shoulder a brief squeeze. “You’ve got about three hours left before Ward barges into your bunk and tears the blankets off the bed.”

She grinned at him and rubbed her eyes. “Yeah. I think I could go back to sleep now. Don’t worry,” she said, looking at him with a serious expression. “I’ll remember how to take care of Lola.”

Coulson smiled back, giving her shoulder another squeeze and her back a gentle push. “I know you will. Now go get some sleep.”

She smiled that gentle smile that made his healed heart spasm. “Yes, sir,” she laughed softly, turned, and headed back up to her bunk.

Ten minutes later, he carefully slid open the door to her bunk. Her eyelids fluttered gently as her chest rose and fell in a steady rhythm. He slid the door closed and went back to his own bed and fell into sleep almost instantly.

It was the best night’s sleep he had gotten in weeks.

***

But now, here he is again at two in the morning, dressed in a black T-shirt and jeans, and instead of going down the stairs to join Skye, he’s tucked into the darkness of a corner, watching--

_(ogling, admit it, you are ogling)_

\--her. Tonight, she’s dressed in a black T-shirt (stolen from _his_ laundry—and why did that make his breath hitch) and the same cutoffs he remembered, although now, with May training her, he can see the play of lean muscle in her arms and legs and an increase in her natural grace from days of sparring and mornings of Tai Chi.

An image of those legs wrapped around him pops into his mind and almost brings him to his knees right there on the catwalk.

_You are too old for her_ , he tells himself yet again. _She sees you as a father, a good friend—nothing more._

He takes a deep breath, glances down to make sure he won’t embarrass himself, and steps out of the shadows, into the low light, and walks slowly down the stairs.

***

This…washing Lola…had become a…a _thing_ \--

( _the only thing_ )

\--that connects the two of them when nothing else seems to connect them lately.

Yes, he’s the Director. Yes, he has a plate overflowing with increasingly strange things these days, but she misses…before. When things were better…clearer. When he had _made_ time for her. Encouraged her natural curiosity about the world, about S.H.I.E.L.D., about _him_. Okay, so he seemed to have trouble holding back a smile at some of her answers, but dammit, they both seemed better for the shared time and conversation.

_And the shared touching wasn’t something you exactly flinched from, hmmm…?_ Dammit! It’s that little imp on her shoulder that shows up whenever she remembers warm hands on her shoulders or at the small of her back. It’s the little imp that had shown up on Day One, when her van door slid open and he stood there with that little grin on his face and Ward—

( _traitorous bastard_ )

\--had shoved a bag over her head and snatched her from her van. Yeah, for a while there, Ward had made her heart go pitter-pat, but between his decision to become her S.O., his ability to carry on a _non_ -relationship with May, and his ultimate reveal as Hydra Poster Boy for 2014 had cut that little romantic notion off at the pass. And Ward had never, ever felt as comfortable as Coulson did—does. Ward had never seemed…touchable. But with Coulson…a touch on the shoulder, a squeeze of her hand, his hand cupping her face as she cried, even the very few and random hugs had seemed natural and almost easy.

So when the demons keep her awake or shake her from her sleep, she pulls on the black T-shirt she had snagged from Coulson’s laundry pile (she had burned Ward’s in a fit of rage) and her cutoffs and heads for Lola’s peaceful company.

Sometimes she catches herself humming a tune from one of Coulson’s records, but for the most part, she’s silent. Not having to talk, to think, to be the genius hacker-wrangling S.H.I.E.L.D. agent is her reward for washing Lola.

And sometimes, when she’s in the car, putting up the top, she’ll see something in the passenger seat. A vintage Captain America comic book in its plastic sleeve. A small bar of lavender soap from an apothecary’s shop in London. A tiny gilt box wrapped in ribbon holding four amazing pieces of Belgian chocolate that she seriously believes could have induced an orgasm. A delicate porcelain vase, no more than three inches high, ringed with morning glory flowers, from France. And tonight—a handle-less teacup that fits perfectly in the palm of her hand, glazed a brilliant red, from Japan. She cups it in her hands and smiles, her memory bringing her the scent and the warmth of May’s ritual of just the two of them sharing a pot of jasmine tea and actual _conversation_ after Tai Chi and sparring.

But May hadn’t flown to Japan recently, sifting through the ashes, looking for intel and allies.

Well, even though she doesn’t have much cash (though Coulson insists on paying them what he can), and she isn’t flying around to different international locales, she still has a few tricks up her sleeve.

The newest Captain America comic, carefully inserted in a sleeve of its own. A set of CDs of performances by the Portland Philharmonic found while digging around a second-hand music store, with Audrey Nathan’s name listed. A hideous Iron Man T-shirt that no one in their right mind (except maybe sweaty cosplay girls) would wear in public. A tacky neon-orange tie printed with tiny pumpkins, ghosts, and black cats bought with five bucks and a smile from a street vendor at the beginning of October. And tonight, she places a small, white box on the seat. It’s taped closed, and decorated with a huge tangle of black, white, and silver ribbons.

S.H.I.E.L.D. colors. Her colors, now.

Her family. Her life.

She’s rinsing Lola off when she hears someone coming down the staircase. She looks up from beneath her bangs and grins.

“Hey, Director,” she calls, turning off the hose and picking up a chamois.

“Hey, Agent,” he replies, smiling that little smile that was now the thing that made her heart pitter-pat. “Sorry I’m late. Didn’t mean to make you do all the work.”

“Hey, you just got back from Japan, like, what, five hours ago? You must have been seriously jet-lagged.” She carefully begins drying Lola, watching from the corner of her eye as Coulson goes about rinsing the buckets, hanging the washing mitts up to dry, and rolling up the hose.

“I wasn’t _that_ jet-lagged. I see you found your souvenir,” he adds, taking up the second chamois.

“I left your thank-you note on the front seat,” she replies, not looking at him, since a serious blush is working its way from her chest to her forehead. They never talked about the gifts before—it made her a bit uncomfortable, to be honest. But he had worn that tacky tie all October and she hoarded the lavender soap, saving it for special occasions when she knew she would be able to get close enough to him that he would inhale and smile at her.

He chuckles. “Sometimes I’m not sure whether to keep bringing you things after I get my ‘thank you’ notes. The tie was brilliant, by the way. But the ‘Iron Man’ shirt? Where did _that_ come from?”

She can feel his eyes on her and the stupid blush just gets hotter. She finally turns to face him, pointing at herself. “Sweaty cosplay girl. Remember?”

He smiles that tiny smile again, nodding, and turns back to the task of drying the car. Her heart tumbles over itself in her chest as she does the same.

When they finish, Coulson makes his way over to the passenger side. She leans one hip against Lola and watches, biting her lip as he removes the ostentatious bow and carefully places it to one side, then slits open the tape with his pocketknife.

He holds the small black flash drive up, cocks his head to one side and looks at it, his brow furrowing slightly in confusion. “What’s this?” he asks.

She cocks her own head and grins at him. “I’ll give you one hint. I have one almost exactly like it.” She can’t help laughing at the look on his face. “Okay, okay, yes, I have many flash drives, but only one comes close to that one,” she says, pointing at the one he holds in his hand. “Go on, A.C.,” she smiles. “Plug it in and see what’s on it.”

He looks at her with suspicion. “If this is some prank…”

“It is not. Now stop fussing and open your thank-you note,” she demands, pulling him to the closest laptop and almost shoving him into the chair in front of it.

He boots up the computer and plugs the drive into the USB port. When the screen goes blank for a moment, he scowls at her until she sighs, turns his head back towards the screen and orders, “Just _wait_ a second.” She slips her hands down to his shoulders to make sure he stays there.

She hears his breath catch as he watches the images caught from the security feeds on the Bus, the Playground, or from various phones and tablets flash in time to the music she had set them to. FitzSimmons, on their first day, arguing over the new “Night-Night” rifle. May “on the stick” with her aviators on and that small, enigmatic smile on her face. Skye herself, focused and intent on her laptop, sitting cross-legged on one of the tables, guaranteed to drive Coulson up a wall. Fitz, undamaged and whole, with shaving cream covering one hand and most of his face. Simmons and Skye, laughing at something over bottles of beer. May captured in the light of early morning, practicing Tai Chi. Amazingly enough, one of Lady Sif, head held high, shield in one hand, sword in the other, a satisfied smile on her face after the dust-up with Lorelei. Trip caught by the camera smiling softly down at Simmons, who was too involved in her Science to notice. Coulson and Trip pawing eagerly through the Howling Commando gear. Coulson himself in his office on the Bus, his tie loose, a button undone, his feet propped up on his desk, gesturing to someone out of view with the glass of scotch in his hand.

Then more faces, newer faces, and some faces lost to them forever flash on the screen. Billy battling Sam over the XBOX. Mack, grinning like a kid at Christmas over a haul of Hydra tech. Hunter with his obligatory bottle of beer. Hartley showing Skye how to put the edge on a blade. Idaho cooking up some godforsaken slop in the kitchen. Bobbi lightening her hair with a grateful, shorter-haired Simmons’ help at one of the large lab sinks. Fitz, alert and engaged with another human being as he and Mack bend over a tablet, one pointing and the other gesturing.

After the slideshow of images end, words emerge on the screen.

“We are not agents of nothing! We are Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.! _That_ carries weight! It _has_ to carry weight!”— _Director of S.H.I.E.L.D., Philip Coulson_

She feels him trembling under her palms and wonders if this might not have been her best idea ever. She swallows hard, then allows herself the luxury of bending down, loosely wrapping her arms around his neck. She rests her forehead against the top of his spine. “I’m sorry,” she sighs, wincing inwardly. “I’ll understand if you don’t want to keep it—“

His grip on her is the only thing that keeps her from cracking her head on the cargo bay floor when he spins the chair around and stands, grabbing her shoulders. “How do you know?” he asks in a harsh whisper. “How do you know what I need to see—what I need to hear—to keep going?”

She swallows hard as he pulls her in closer, his eyes and voice softer now. “How do you know, Skye? Once, I told May that that was the thing about you—when I tell you something that could destroy your faith in humanity, you manage to repair a little piece of mine.”

When his voice breaks, her arms go around him automatically and she closes her eyes as her head comes to rest against his chest, against his heart—a fragile thing that was once torn apart—and listens to it pounding in her ear. She listens to it beating loud and fast and strong, the sound reminding her that he’s alive and she’s alive and nothing else matters.

He’s still shaking a little, but his arms are warm and tight, keeping her safe, because, S.H.I.E.L.D. agent or not, Phil Coulson would still value her, no matter what, because he believed that every life mattered. When he had yelled that at them in the frozen tundra—that line that being a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent _carried weight_ —that had been her defining moment. The final push she needed to know that this was what she needed to do.

And then he starts talking again. “You’re training hard, every day. You’re honing your skills. You’re dedication—you’re going to be one of the best agents we have. But you knew to buy Fitz that Curious George collection with the stuffed monkey and read those books to him every day he was stuck in that hospital bed while the rest of us just waited for him to start talking again. And when Simmons won’t leave the lab, you draw her out by making her tea _exactly_ how she likes it. May _shares_ her tea with you and I could swear she’s actually _smiling_ while she’s talking to you. Hartley let you work with her knives. I know you share a beer every night with Trip. And when I’m not here, I see you around every corner—“

He stops suddenly, to take a breath that leaves him in a shuddering exhale. “The first gift _was_ for washing Lola. But the others—I was having nightmares in foreign countries about watching you in that medical pod, watching you code again and again and again, and the only thing that helped was to get up, go out, and find something that reminded me of you.”

“The lavender soap. It reminded you of me.” she says flatly, angling her head slightly so she can look up at him.

He’s blushing. “It…it smelled like you. I finally fell asleep when I held it up to my nose for a while.”

One eyebrow goes up, hidden beneath her bangs. “The chocolate?”

He clears his throat and stops looking at her. “Skye, the way you look when you eat good chocolate is probably illegal in several different states.”

There’s a smile in her voice as she asks, “The vase?”

He finally pulls away a bit so he _can_ look at her. “Because you would never, in a million years, buy something like that for yourself.”

When she bites down hard on her bottom lip to stop the tears, he moves his hands to gently cup her face, his thumbs brushing away the tears that inevitably fall. And before she can even register what’s happening, his lips are replacing his hands and he’s kissing— _kissing_ —her tears away.

And it’s soft and gentle and makes her feel fragile and _precious_ —she’s never been precious to _anyone_ before. So the next time he moves in, she whimpers softly, takes his face in her hands and places her lips lightly over his.

It’s like a dam breaking. She’s crushed against him and she can’t breathe but she doesn’t care because his mouth is wonderfully hot and demanding on hers and his hands are tangled in her hair, positioning her head right where he wants her. She breaks away briefly to inhale but plunges back in to the kiss, her tongue darting over his lips until he surrenders with a moan and opens his mouth to her.

And suddenly, she _wants_. She wants what this means, in all its straightforwardness and complexity. She runs her fingernails over his scalp, wrapping her tongue around his and sucking on it.

He pulls away, panting. He presses their foreheads together. “Skye--,” he tries to say, tries to stop, to give her an out before they do something—

( _wonderful, phenomenal_ )

 --they’ll regret later, but she shushes him and places a finger over his lips and looks at him with those dark, deep, wide eyes that won’t let him deny her anything, even this.

She pulls on his hands, tugging him towards the stairs. He follows her upwards, his hand tangled in hers. They end up not in his old bunk, but hers.

After she slides the door closed behind them, she’s kissing him again, placing his hands on her waist, under his T-shirt, his hands hot against her skin. His hands slide upwards and she hears him moan when he realizes there’s no bra between his hands and her breasts. She shudders as his thumbs skate over her nipples.

She pulls away, panting, her eyes never leaving his. She pulls the T-shirt over her head, and unbuttons her cutoffs, tossing everything on the floor. She barely registers that he’s doing the same thing until she’s back in his arms and he tumbles them on to the narrow bunk.

She sighs in contentment as her body ends up cradling his. He slows down the kisses until they’re soft and warm enough to make her whole body relax underneath his. He moves his head to the side, whispers, “Skye,” as he nuzzles her ear, then moves his lips down the side of her neck. She hums contentedly at the feeling of him above her, alternately nuzzling her hair and gently suckling at the juncture of her neck and shoulder. “Phil,” she whispers back, the name foreign and familiar on her tongue at the same time, running her fingers over his back and down his spine, feeling his muscles jump as she does. She feels his cock hard against her belly and she wraps her legs around his waist as she presses a trail of kisses into his neck.

He moans and shakes his head, reaching back to unlock her ankles so he can reach her breasts. He uses the pads of his fingers and light strokes of his tongue at first, and she’s arching her back up towards him, whispering “ _please, please, please_ ” until he smiles and takes a nipple into his mouth, gently letting his teeth scrape across it. She gasps and begins to beg, something she has _never_ done before, but this is Coulson—no, this is _Phil_ —and he won’t think that she’s weak, or tease her for her vulnerability, for her need for him.

He’s moving back and forth between her breasts, lavishing each one with equal attention and concentration until she begins to audibly beg, “Please, I need—I need _more_ —please…” He moves upward to kiss her gently, running a hand firmly up and down her side until he feels her relax again, sighing against his mouth. He brings his hand over a hip to run it between her thighs and his hand comes away glistening with wetness.

She cries out and her hips jerk upward at the contact. He moves down between her legs. It’s a tight fit, but he manages. He slips his fingers upwards between her folds, holding her open. He can feel her body trembling, and when he hears, “Oh God, Phil, _please_ …” he can’t resist any longer. He uses his mouth and tongue to drive her upwards, then fastens his mouth over her wet and swollen clit, caressing it with the flat of his tongue, holding her hips in place as she starts to wordlessly keen.

When she comes, it shatters her. She has no time to try and put herself together because he hasn’t stopped—he’s still going and she can feel the wetness leaking from between her legs, and she’s coming again and somehow she manages to use her hands to spread her legs wider, until she feels his tongue deep inside her, thrusting and fluttering and she comes a third and final time, her hips snapping, and suddenly she’s sobbing.

He moves himself upwards so he can cradle her against him. He can feel her body shaking and her thighs spasm. He’s not frightened; he’s known and loved—

( _loved, yes, loved_ )

\--that emotional intensity of hers since the beginning.

He runs his free hand through her hair as she curls her body into his and he whispers her name over and over again, mixed with loving, tender words and promises he intends to keep. He feels her body start to relax and her breathing smooth out.

Then she’s rolling them over until she’s underneath him again, but now she has a hand on his cock and she’s wrapping her legs around him, and positioning him at just the right angle so the next time she moves her hips upwards, he is surrounded by tight, moist heat. God, he is actually _inside_ her and for one long moment he can’t move.

He manages to gasp out, “Oh…God… _Skye_ …” before he’s moving inside her, his head pressing into her shoulder, trying to hold himself back, to make this last, to show her with his body what he can never seem to find the words for.

But she’s done with waiting, done with wanting, and she clamps her legs around his waist, driving him deeper with every move of her hips. “Show me,” she whispers in his ear. “Show me how much you’ve wanted this. Show me, Phil.”

And he groans and grabs her hips, holding her still with a grip that will leave bruises as he drives himself into her, hearing her chanting, “Yes, yes, yes…” like it’s a psalm, a prayer. Somehow, he can hold himself back, wait until her whispers are so high-pitched that they’re almost inaudible, and as soon as he feels her body lock like a vise around him, he’s coming apart above her, and the only thing he knows is that he wants this to go on forever.

After, when they both come back to Earth, he rolls them on their sides so they’re facing each other, so he can look into her eyes and can play with her hair. She’s smiling at him, her skin glowing in the dark, one hand tracing the features of his face, as if she’s trying to memorize them.

When she yawns, he pulls back the sheet and blanket so they can both slip underneath. She spoons herself against him, pulling his arm over and around her. He gently cradles her against his body, nuzzling her hair and the back of her neck. She murmurs in contentment, tangling her fingers with his.

“I love you,” he hears her whisper into the darkness.

He swears that his heart stops beating completely for at least five seconds. He buries his face in her hair and inhales. “I love you too,” he whispers into her hair.

“I’ll keep taking care of Lola,” she murmurs, sleep seeping into her voice.

“I know,” he replies, pulling her closer. “Sleep now, Skye,” he whispers into her ear. He hears her sigh and feels her body relax against him.

He smiles into the darkness, feeling his own eyes growing heavy. He falls asleep too quickly to be able to savor the moment, but he has the feeling there will be more moments, so he’s content.

***

In the thin, early morning light, a figure pads barefoot around the Playground until she comes to the lowered cargo ramp of the Bus. She smiles—it’s small, but it’s there. She climbs soundlessly up the stairs and makes her way to the bunks. She’s not surprised when she finds the door to Skye’s old bunk closed. She carefully slides it open, being careful to make no sound.

The small smile deepens when she sees the two figures wrapped around each other. The only sound is that of two people, deeply asleep, breathing in tandem.

May closes the door and goes back downstairs into the Playground, the smile still on her face as she slows her own breathing, and begins her first flowing motions of Tai Chi.  


End file.
